Andrea Clark: CAVE

Marcia Wood Gallery is pleased to present CAVE, an exhibition of new ceramics by Andrea Clark, on view from September 9 through October 16 at 764 Miami Circle NE. CAVE is Clark’s debut solo exhibition at Marcia Wood Gallery and in Atlanta.

CAVE is a solo exhibition of ceramic drawings and objects by Georgia-based artist Andrea Clark. It is the debut of Clark’s series of ceramic lamps and objets d’art created under the moniker CAVE.  Signature of CAVE are surrealist-tinged shapes that read as warm silhouettes.  The forms often contain openings or passages that allow you to ‘see through’ the objects and the matte and silky surfaces seem to absorb colors around them. CAVE objects exist comfortably alongside Clark’s porcelain drawings; images produced on shell-like paper by building up many layers of liquid clay.  The drawings are displayed inside ceramic frames that echo the CAVE objects. From the artist: “The lamps and other objects for CAVE became an extension to the process of making ceramic frames for the drawings. CAVE is the place where all these wild forms cohabitate comfortably. They have all travelled here from my dream world.”

From the artist:

"I push the capabilities of the ceramic material to work in between two and three dimensions by treating clay like paint. To create the porcelain paintings I build up thin layers of pigmented liquid porcelain that emerge from the kiln as shell-like paper. Because the colors do not mature until after the firing, much of the final product is left to chance, guesswork, and luck. I welcome and often rely on the mystery built into this process.   Some paintings are laser etched after firing, delicately carving the top layer of porcelain to reveal the layers beneath. Stoneware frames and shelves contextualize the materiality of the work and allow the paintings to creep into space. 

When creating the paintings, I'm thinking about how the mind retains, shapes, and shifts images through memories, dreams, and visions. Dreams are the mind’s way of recovering memory and the paintings are my attempt to recover the imagery in dreams. The imagery in the porcelain paintings is intuitive and often explores mirroring, framing, and layering.  Many of the images hint at landscape; mutable places that can be seen through arched windows or as a backdrop to a stage of shapes. Outlines and interiors are never closed circuits but remain exposed, allowing the possibility to traverse through. 

CAVE is my collection of premium ceramic objects and it is also a place.  It is my lair of fantasy filled with objects of delight; here, objects live that offer portals or openings to the spaces beyond/behind them. The objects have a fired-on coating of pigmented clay that is not a glaze but reflects a dewy glow.  The objects are made of stoneware clay and mica, a material mined from the Earth and plentiful in Georgia."

--Andrea Clark, 2021

Andrea Clark (b. 1990) is an artist currently living in Georgia, USA.  She has completed residencies at Greenwich House Pottery (2015), Anderson Ranch Arts Center (2018), and the Hambidge Center for Creative Arts (2018).  She is a recipient of the 2013 Windgate Emerging Artist Grant.  Recent exhibitions include "Don't Dream It's Over" at ESXLA, Los Angeles and "Between Object and Image" (online) for Marcia Wood Gallery, Atlanta.